Regarding conventional manufacturing machines, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2004-314168 for example discloses a laser cladding apparatus for pump devices with the purpose of fast and accurate cladding without causing cracks in a base material (Patent Document 1). The laser cladding apparatus disclosed in Patent Document 1 includes a powder feeder feeding a metal material (powder) by means of argon gas as a carrier gas, a vortex-type powder feed nozzle uniformly mixing the fed metal material with the argon gas and simultaneously using a gas mixture of argon and nitrogen as a shield gas, and a multi-axis robot moving the vortex-type power feed nozzle.
Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2012-206137 discloses a repair apparatus with the purpose of easily performing cladding welding without human labor (Patent Document 2). The repair apparatus disclosed in Patent Document 2 includes a material feeding unit, a laser apparatus emitting a laser spot beam, and a welding robot having a multi-joint arm for moving the laser spot beam in three-dimensional directions.